well this could almost kill me
by theyouthless
Summary: In New York, she'll be a star. She doesn't miss L.A. a bit and she doesn't miss anyone she left there. She especially doesn't miss the ones who didn't bother to try and change her mind.  btr x victorious   possible two-shot


She's in New York all of four days when she decides that it's _her home. _Jade fits in New York, belongs in New York. _She makes sense in New York._ She never made sense in L.A., with her pale skin and her dark hair and her affinity for black clothing. It was never her home, never belonged to _her. _L.A. belonged to her mother's pipe dreams. It belonged to girls with tanner skin and less vocal range, but a more _marketable _look. It was never hers. L.A. beat her down, shoved her into the supporting cast. New York is _hers_, whether it knows it yet or not, and she will fucking _shine. _In New York, she'll be a star.

She doesn't miss L.A. a bit and she doesn't miss anyone she left there. _She especially doesn't miss the ones who didn't bother to try and change her mind.

* * *

_Everyone just assumes that Beck left her and that's why she ran across the country. _After all, if they had been a fairytale than she was the evil queen and he was the poor prince under her wicked spell._

The truth is she left him. She didn't want to do it; she would have given anything not to have had to do it, but her life in L.A. was over the second she graduated.

Beck's wasn't. Beck was meant for Hollywood Boulevard. His face was meant to be up on the big screen and his smile needed to be seen on red carpets around the world and to do this he needed to be in L.A., not New York.

Jade didn't go to New York because Beck left her. She left beck to go to New York. She didn't want to do it but she doesn't regret it. _Most days._

* * *

After eight months of rejections and _almost_, Jade lands her first role on The Great White Way. She's so excited when she gets the call that she drops her coffee and it splatters all over her shoes and the floor of the café. It doesn't even matter that people are glaring at her or that _Ilse _isn't even the part she auditioned for because _finally._

* * *

In the first read through she meets the rest of the cast and instantly takes a disliking to the guy playing _Melchior_. He walks around like a star because…well, _he is. _He's only been in two other plays but his name is well known in the Broadway community and it's usually attached to words like _spectacular _or _most promising rising star_.

His name is James and he has the second nicest head of hair she's ever seen. He's handsome and charming and the other girls giggle into puddles of stupid goo whenever he smiles at them.

Jade just wants to shove him down an elevator shaft.

He's over groomed and his charm is more dumb arrogance than anything. What annoys her most is that he _takes an interest _in her and _won't leave her alone_. Her insults roll right off of him, he doesn't blink at her death threats, and even laughs when she colorfully describes what she'll do to his manhood if he keeps bothering her.

"Want to get drinks?" He asks her when they're leaving.

"Want to walk in front of a bus?"

He smiles at her and she walks away a bit too quickly to be called composed. She doesn't like James; _something about him stirs up ghosts._

* * *

Cat and Robbie visit her on her one year anniversary of living in New York. They show up at her door at two in the morning with bagels and big smiles. Cat starts crying and shaking and keeps repeating _oh my god I missed you so much you have no idea_. Seeing them wakes something up in her and suddenly she feels like she can't breathe, like a hole's been punched through her.

* * *

Cat and Robbie leave a week later and she hates them for it. Her apartment seems bigger now, everything seems too clean and the city feels _empty_. She's been on her own for a year and never felt _lonely _before_. _

In a moment spurred by loneliness and raspberry vodka she actually answers James' call, just long enough to slur her address at him and hang up. He shows up not twenty minutes later and they drink until they're lying on the floor of her living room and he's telling her about the failed boy band he was in years ago.

Passing him the bottle, she hopes she'll remember that valuable piece of information by morning and closes her eyes. She can feel him staring at her, feels and hears him shift onto his side to stare down at her pointedly. It makes her uncomfortable but fuck all if she's going to show that.

"What about you?" James asks.

"What _about _me?"

"Why did you leave? I've thought about this a lot. I mean, you could've done stage in L.A., so why move all the way across the country to a city where you have nothing and know no one?"

She opens her eyes and feels her stomach flip at the way he's looking at her. She can't stand it, it makes it hard to breathe and makes her skin hot and she thinks that this is probably what claustrophobics feel like. He's much too close…

"Was it a guy? He says with a small smile, shaking his head after a moment. "You don't seem like the type to run away because of a guy."

"I didn't _run away_ from anything," Jade says with a little less conviction than she would have liked. It tastes like a lie.

James stares her right in the eye and he looks like he's trying to crack the code on some combination lock. Heart thrumming in her chest and stomach turning, she stares unblinkingly back at him because she's _Jade West _and no ex-boy band member is going to make her flinch.

"It_ was _a guy," He says with a proud finality. Her glare _almost _slips. His smile softens and he gets this _sympathetic pitying _look on his face that makes her want to punch him in the ear. She knows he's about to try and have some sort of _heart to fucking heart _with her.

So she kisses him.

His reaction is instant. He rolls over on top of her, pinning down and kissing her back in a feverish way that makes her think he's been dreaming of this. All thoughts of _heart to hearts _and ex-boyfriends are forgotten and everything is just _heat_. They spend the next hour reenacting the hayloft scene.

"I'm not Wendla," Jade says when it's all over. She pulls his t-shirt on over her head and starts in the direction of the kitchen but pauses when he calls after her.

"_I'm not Melchior."_

* * *

After that night, James becomes a pretty permanent fixture in her life and she _actually_ doesn't mind. She doesn't consider him a friend. She doesn't consider him _anything _really because she doesn't want to think too much or label whatever it is they're doing.

He shows up at her apartment before every rehearsal with coffee, learns not to talk to her until she's had every last drop if it's before ten in the morning, and just…is there. And she doesn't _hate _it.

_And if sometimes he spends the night…well, she doesn't hate that either._

* * *

She reserves five tickets for opening night when she means to reserve four. She considers just shredding the fifth and almost does but James stops her, physically fighting her for it and shoving it into the envelope along with the rest. It takes her a full two minutes to actual drop the envelope into the letterbox. When she does she regrets it immediately and almost reaches her arm in to get it back but James stops her from doing that too.

_She kicks him in the shin and orders him to buy her a coffee._

* * *

Cat texts her and tells her they're flying in the night before the show opens and Jade makes sure that her phone is off. She also makes sure that she stays at James' apartment that night. When she turns it back on the next morning she has texts and voicemails from Robbie, Tori, Andre, and Cat.

She turns her phone off again and kicks James awake. _She doesn't think of that fifth ticket. _

* * *

She can't see the audience with the spotlight shining so bright and she's _infinitely _grateful for that. She steps on stage and everything melts off. She forgets about the potentially empty seat and lets the spotlight fill her, makes sure to leave her heart on center stage.

She may not be the lead but she makes sure that _she'll _be the one everyone is talking about. No one will ever play _Ilse_ as well as her. _She makes sure of that._

* * *

Jade is the last of the cast to leave with the exception of James, whose old band mates came out for the show and insisted on a _backstage tour _that she's positive is just a cover for them to talk to James about her. So Jade goes outside to wait for him, grateful to have gotten away before Carlos began acting out the hayloft scene with a couch. The stage door slams behind her loudly just as her eyes land on _him._

_Jade can't breathe._ That hole that Cat and Robbie had punched through her chest is torn open wider than ever and every part of her feels like it's on fire. He looks different but the same all at once. He's taller, she thinks, and less gangly than she remembers. His hair looks shorter, maybe even lighter? Or maybe his skin is just tanner. She doesn't know because all she can think of is how…unreal he seems.

_He has flowers._ A ridiculous, fluffy bouquet of peonies and carnations are clutched in his hands and she knows that he knows she hates flowers but he also knows that she _always_ makes exceptions for him.

He takes a step forward and licks his lips, opening his mouth to speak just as the stage door opens behind her. Beck's words are lost in a thunder of laughter and the obnoxiously loud voices of James and his friends. James' arm slings around her like it always does anymore, heavy and lazy. His laughter stops when he notices the look on her face and follows her shell-shocked gaze to Beck. He immediately pulls her closer. Jade doesn't know if it's a protective gesture or a possessive one.

Beck's face flashes with something familiar, something that makes everything inside her ribcage rattle. He shakes his head and turns, walking away so fast he might as well have ran.

Everything in her screams to run after him but _her feet won't fucking move._

* * *

It's somewhere around four in the morning when Jade's pulled out of the worst sleep she's ever gotten by incessant, angry knocking. She detangles herself from the sheets and stomps all the way to through her empty apartment. She flings the door open, ready to scream at the _idiot _on the other side, but she's cut off before she can even begin by a familiar, forceful mouth.

_And she doesn't even care that she probably tastes like sleep and tequila because Beck tastes the same. _Everything is moving so fast and it's all so blurry and all she can do is _feel._ His hand is tangled in her hair almost painfully, his arm around her waist in a vise like grip, pressing her body flush against his. She's kissing back on pure instinct because _this is Beck_ and kissing Beck is like breathing for her, she does it without thinking _whether she wants to or not. _

He pushes her backwards through the threshold and into the wall and she almost hisses at the pain that flares up in her shoulder blade. She doesn't though, because Beck brushes his thumb over her cheek and bites her bottom lip and e_verything else is gone._

He pulls away abruptly and rests his forehead against hers, squeezing his eyes closed tightly. Jade's hands are still tangled in his hair and his are still on her cheeks and their chests are heaving in sync they're both breathing so heavy. He swallows hard and lets out a shaky _I needed you to know_ and kisses her hard and swift once more before leaving, the door still open behind him.

Jade slumps down against the wall and cradles her head in her hands, doesn't move until sunrise when she remembers that there's another boy in her bed. So she crawls back into bed, curls her fingers around James' to see how it fits and because he's there and he's trying and she feels like he deserves better than just sex with a girl who kisses other guys while he's asleep in the next room.

_But her fingers don't weave into his as easily as she would like and she finds herself imagining a thinner, tanner hand holding hers. _


End file.
